Start the Game
by Wrorus
Summary: Kuroko is just your average college student that's overly studious and obviously very stressed out. When his roommate insists that he has to play a popular mmorpg called Infinite Tales Online as a way to relax, he said, "why not?". What he doesn't expect is that he'll meet cool people along the way and actually befriending them. future GoM/Kuroko, kagakuro friendship.


**A/N**: Another contribution to the fandom, hallelujah! So, to sum it up, this is AU, Kuroko never meets any of the GoM, Kuroko is roommates with Kagami and also a mmorpg/game-fic. This will not be the futuristic mmorpg/game-fic like SAO or 1/2 Prince, just your good ol' mmorpg. Think **_Eden Eternal_** (the only mmorpg I can think of, the only one that I'm willing to tolerate and hasn't sunken low yet). This will also be Kuroko/GoM (not love at first sight, I assure you) but kinda slow, depending how long my chapters are or how many chapters I'm willing to write. The details on college will only be in this chapter and future chapters won't contain much of it.

**Warnings/Tags**: AU, not-betaed (because I'm don't have a lovely beta and I'm pretty sure no one wants to deal with my shit), Kuroko/Kagami friendship, AU!Kuroko-GoM-never-met, future GoM/Kuroko (yes, all of them), over-exaggeration on college years (because I'm not in college yet and this is kinda based on real-life exaggerations, so any college folk here, please don't kill me).

**Summary**: Kuroko is just your average college student that's overly studious and obviously very stressed out. When his roommate insists that he has to play a popular mmorpg called Infinite Tales Online as a way to relax, he said, "why not?". What he doesn't expect is that he'll meet cool people along the way and actually befriending them.

**Disclaimer**: Don't own Kuroko no Basuke (I'm terrible at sports, so how will I create a basketball manga?) and all the mentioned English classic novels. They belong to their respective owners (plus, I've already listed the authors). Though Infinite Tales Online does belong to me.

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**Start the Game**

**Chapter One**

_[Press Play]_

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A soft sigh of relief escaped his chapped lips as he plopped down onto his bed from exhaustion. He shouldn't be that relieved but at least he finished some of his goddamned assignments.

It wasn't much but it was a start.

A start of a journey to hellish nightmares and stress that he would probably have for the next few months.

—He swore that the lecturers who assigned them were spawns of some hell god of torture. He didn't even remember being this stressed out in high school.—

Even though he was supposed to be doing more productive things, he couldn't help but mentally cringed at the fact that the moment he became a college student, he had sealed his fate to a never-ending amount assignments, droning lecturers no different from the ones in high school and horribly timed lectures. Before, he naively thought that he would have more free time on his hands, but with the lectures and assignments, he felt like he hardly had free time to even sleep.

He shot up from his bed, stretched his back and cracked his knuckles.

Three 15 paged essays down, another nine more assignments to go.

Life sucked for one Kuroko Tetsuya.

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The moment he finally got out of his room to take a short break from his assigned torture to eat something, Kagami went all out mother-hen on him. While it was nice to see his longtime friend care for his health, it was also a little disturbing to see his rather manly roommate in the pink apron with the printed words "cooking is love" in a girly, cursive font that Alex gave to the fiery redhead as an April Fool's joke that the American returnee accepted anyways, since it meant that he didn't need to buy an apron ("You're such a cheapskate, Kagami-kun," he remembered telling those words to his already disgruntled friend, who then replied, "At least it ain't frilly!").

"You've been overworking yourself, Kuroko." said Kagami while he was cooking lunch — Chinese fried rice with an assortment of ingredients mixed in, like sliced carrot bits, onions, egg and sliced and diced chicken meat.

The delicious smell wafted throughout the room and Kuroko smiled as he was preparing jasmine green tea by boiling water in a kettle and taking out the respective tea leaves. Kuroko didn't like using tea bags, as convenient as they were, the taste of tea from a tea bag was just a watered down version compared to tea leaves and his mother said that teabags are frowned upon by her, even saying that the invention of teabags were caused by idiots who didn't know the bag was just for storage purposes and the producer of said teabags took the credit for something he hadn't even planned on and he didn't want to incur his mother's wrath; plus, the teaching stuck to him. He placed the kettle onto the stove and turned on the fire to low heat, twisting the switch anti-clockwise.

It was one of the perks of being roommates with Kagami and that was delicious home-cooked meals. Granted, he could cook himself a nice meal himself since Kagami taught him occasionally because the redhead was worried that if he didn't come back to cook food, Kuroko wouldn't even eat anything else but plain rice and boiled eggs. Though Kuroko himself told Kagami that he would buy a lunchbox from the nearest convenient store that he could reheat since it took less effort, it only earned him a smack to the head because apparently, to quote the redhead, it was "a wastage of money, damage to the economy and expensive for something so darn simple even Riko could do" which, the last comment, said a lot because Riko, their old time friend, was so terrible at cooking that she should have a legitimate document that states she was illegal to own even a single cooking utensil. But, it took too much time out of his schedule to do his assignments and he rather took the time to do creative snacks that could be done under an hour or so rather than going all out cooking his own meals every single time.

"I know, Kagami-kun." sighed Kuroko tiredly, like he had just lost a war and admitted defeat, as he added the tea leaves into the kettle.

He left it to its own devices for three minutes as he searched the cabinet for two mugs to pour the tea into for himself anything Kagami. Even though mugs were not the most ideal for tea, he had no time to bother at the moment though he promised himself to buy a proper tea set when he gets his next paycheck from his part-time babysitting job. After all, he needed to relax and indulge himself on certain things once in a while.

"I need to finish my assignments before the semester ends and prepare myself for the second semester's exams. After that, I don't need to worry much, because first year would end and second year would be more laidback as the first year is more of a preparation and learning the basics of literature by plowing through classic English novels if anything, really." droned Kuroko, cringing inwardly when he noticed how tired and haggard he sounded. "Even though I'm technically in my element, majoring in literature is rather boring during the first year because assignments are always on classical novels like _Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte_, _Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen_, _Little Women by Louisa May Alcott_, _Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky_..." the teal-haired male trailed off.

It was true that Kuroko liked to read, but that didn't mean he liked to read all types of books. His favorites was always the tragedy, intense in emotion, modern crime, mystery, psychological, mythology or the occasional sci-fi novel, but not classic English novels. His judgement on books wasn't bias just because of his preference, but he tended to stay away from genres that weren't his cup of tea. Finally noticing how his roommate furrowed his eyebrows in confusion when the redhead served the cooked fried rice on two porcelain plates and also realizing that all the names of the famous classic novels he had spoken of made no sense and was, at best, gibberish to his best friend, he changed the topic.

"To simply put, Kagami-kun, I don't get to work on what I like or want to do." summarized Kuroko, because he felt that his tired droning almost killed some of his best friend's brain cells, which wasn't good and was counter-productive at best, because the fiery redhead was already thick-headed enough; no need to make him into a dunce. "It's boring and the material is not stimulating."

"Well, sounds like it sucks for you." commented Kagami, forgetting or simply ignoring about the gibberish he heard just a few moments ago and occupied himself pulling a drawer that contained spoons and withdrawing two out of probably 15 spoons.

"That's just putting it mildly." Kuroko gave a blank look. The teal-haired man stared at the kettle before blinking and turning off the fire, taking the kettle and pouring the tea into the mugs, before placing the kettle back onto the stove and taking the two tea-filled mugs from the counter, with Kagami right behind him, two plates of fried rice in his hands.

The conversation halted for a moment, since the two needed to arrange the plates and mugs onto the table, movements fluid and like a clockwork with no trouble as they've been living together for quite some time already and done it countless of times. Then the two roommates took a seat and said the usual "itadakimasu" before digging in and continuing where they left off.

"By the way, Kagami-kun," said Kuroko before swallowing a spoonful of fried rice, "Aren't you supposed to be at the basketball court today?" asked the sky blue-haired male curiously.

The college student knew that Kagami usually volunteered to teach kids basketball and train teenagers if they were basketball players for their school team from Mondays to Thursdays, as Fridays were reserved for volunteering at the local fire station while Saturdays and Sundays were his deserved break of the week. Yet today was a Monday but Kagami was still here in the afternoon, when he should've been gone since morning until evening?

"One of the kids got a bad case of flu and infected some of his friends while the lucky ones decided to stay away from the court when I advised them to do so after I found out about it and lectured the sick kid to to take care of his own health. Kids these days, told them not to play in the rain." recapped Kagami while grumbling in disappointment and eyebrows scrunched up in annoyance.

"I hope you lectured that sick boy properly on health and whatnot, Kagami-kun." stated Kuroko, his eyes shone worry that was only noticeable to Kagami. It was for Kagami to read his blank-faced friend's emotions since they stuck together for a long time. "It wouldn't do for kids to get sick; it would affect their lifestyles."

Kagami gave an of-course-I-did look directed at Kuroko before remembering to add another part of his recap that made him smile proudly. "Besides that, the teens I'm training went off for the Regionals' Game, you know, where they face of each district's school to compete in becoming the champion in the region? So, they wouldn't be back for, like a month, probably."

"That's... great, Kagami-kun." said Kuroko, seething in envy, though Kagami did not notice his roommate's displeasure. He wanted that one month break real bad but sadly, life wasn't fair and he was stuck with doing useless assignments!

"Speaking of games," spoke Kagami, gulping down the last of his tea before speaking again. "Ever heard of Infinite Tales Online, ITO for short?" He asked.

Kuroko shook his head at the unfamiliar name and its acronym. He didn't know what it was, but it sounded kind of interesting. "What is that?"

"It's a mmorpg." replied Kagami, causing Kuroko to frown at yet another unfamiliar term. "Nevermind; just think of it as an online game."

"And this game you're talking about," said the college student, drinking the last of his tea before continuing, "Is relevant to me because?" He questioned.

"I'm saying that you should try it out." deadpanned Kagami dryly. His roommate was dense at times, yet he still calls him thick-headed. When Kuroko made a face that clearly said "why-would-I-waste-my-time-on-something-so-trivial -when-I-need-to-finish-the-assignments-I-need-to-d o-but-obviously-don't-enjoy-doing", he sighed and spoke again to lower the stressed out male's uncertainty in trying.

"Look, it won't hurt to try and it's just for fun and relieving stress." he continued before his friend voiced out his protests, "Face it, Kuroko, ever since you entered college, you've been stressed out to the point that even the least friendliest acquaintance of ours asked where you've been." When Kuroko asked who, Kagami simply replied "Haizaki" in a way that seemed like than man was the bogeyman himself in the flesh while Kuroko paled (_"Even Haizaki?"_, he thought).

"Our seniors are worried and you're more withdrawn from social activities than usual." said Kagami, frowning even more when Kuroko made another move to protest that he was normally an introvert anyways but Kagami interrupted him. "It's harmless and I'm sure you can make some time for it instead of burying yourself in your assignments. I really don't want to order a coffin for you, you know." the redhead joked lightly.

Kuroko hesitated. What if he couldn't finish his assignments on time and he had to rush through it? He didn't like last minute deals. It was troublesome and risky. But on the other hand, it sounded extremely tempting and he did want to try it...

He finally relented and for the first time, Kuroko Tetsuya gave into temptation at the insistence of a best friend's whims.

He hoped he wouldn't regret this decision that he didn't really think through.

"Why not?"

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**A/N**: I'll keep this short; I don't know what to do with this fic and how'll it go, so any suggestions are helpful and please review, because I'm very review-friendly.

Thanks for reading!


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